The National Food and Nutrient Analysis Program (NFNAP), is an ongoing collaborative undertaking between USDA, various Institutes/Centers/Offices within NIH, FDA and several other federal groups. The purpose of NFNAP is to assist with the development of authoritative food and dietary supplement composition databases. It uses state-of-the-art methods to acquire, evaluate, compile and disseminate composition information about foods and supplements which are available in the United States. Resulting data will reflect an accurate, up-to-date and statistically sound representation of national food consumption patterns. The data generated should also estimate the variability of the content of important nutrients and dietary food components in selected foods. The study design must be scientifically and statistically sound, building on robust scientific principles and appropriate technical approaches using a well-defined quality control program to ensure national representativeness and high quality data. For the data to reach the U.S. research and clinical care communities as well as the U.S. public, all data must be incorporated into the USDA National Nutrient Database in a timely manner, available on http://www.nal.usd.gov/fnic/foodcomp and any specialized nutrient database(s) as appropriate.